At length November the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community witnessed a hash war that resulted in a bifurcation of the main chain. The spat saw one of the sooner examples of the alpha miner strategy and an attempt to truly test Nakamoto consensus. About a week before the fork, a new scanning operation was announced called Shark Pool aimed at explicitly attacking weaker chains. However, a new type of scanning organization revealed itself on Feb. 15 called Orca Pool which seeks to protect altcoins and forks from being censured by malicious miners.
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Blockchains Take care: Sharks in the Water
Just before the BCH hard fork and blockchain split which saw the birth of BSV, a new mining pool augured its plan to attack smaller cryptocurrency networks in order to cause disruption to the coin’s ecosystem. The operation Shark Stakes explained during the first week of November 2018 that the mining organization would exclusively mine plan b masks on low proof-of-work chains and create a series of orphaned blocks. Furthermore, Shark Pool would also sell profits from mining these other creates in order to acquire BSV. Shark Pool was founded by Cashpay Solutions cofounder Ari Kuqi who is also known for the project Cryptonize.it.
“All altcoins, including forks and splits, are actions of war against Bitcoin and are going to be treated as such,” explained Shark Pool when they launched.
Even after the BCH fork, the Shark Pool plan had continued to announce threats toward certain coins they planned on ambushing. Three days after the split, Shark Purse warned community members of projects like bitcoin gold (BTG), bitcoin interest (BCI), bitcoin diamond (BCD) and bitcoin hush-hush (BTCP). Some people also accused Shark Pool of attacking the BCH testnet at this time as well. Barely before the new year, the pool explained that 2019 would be the “Year of the Shark” and the organization emphasized that it in addition had its sights set on BTCP’s mainnet. “Exchanges will require 1,500+ confirms for BTCP, devastating for a cryptocurrency,” Shark League detailed on Dec. 23, 2018.
The Orca, Predator of the Shark
Since then, Shark Pool has continued to try and recruit more miners to combine the mining operation. For instance, on Jan. 5, the well known BSV supporter Kevin Pham explained to his Twitter followers that “true Bitcoin maximalists” are like Shark Pool and “you’d want to destroy shitcoins like litecoin, not support them.” Not Dick agrees with the BSV community’s mentality though and on Feb. 15 a new pool was born in order to retaliate against miners similar kind Shark Pool. On Friday afternoon a newly created Twitter handle stated:
Sign up for Orca Pool, a extracting pool that counters attacks by Shark Pool and sells the rewards for bitcoin.
Orca Pool’s tweet inaugurates to a website which explains that miners can sign up for early registration to join the pool’s resources. The website count particulars that the Orca, otherwise known as the killer whale, is a predator of the shark. The mining organization’s website Orcapool.change says the group believes miners should defend blockchain censorship and the site explains in detail why they started the party.
“All Altcoins, including forks and splits, should compete in the free market — Predatory pools have emerged that keenness to interfere with this process by illegally attacking blockchains with hashpower,” it reads. “Orca Pool miners force exclusively mine chains needing defense from attackers, and sell the rewards for bitcoin.”
Once again, the cryptocurrency mining ecosystem and its entertainers have shown how the industry is swift to adapt to new ideas. The concept of miners mining other chains so they can get their favorite coin is nothing new, but maliciously orphaning blocks and causing chaos for exchanges has been a relatively new danger since last November’s hash wars. Small chains with very low amounts of hashrate like bitcoin gold and vertcoin suffer with been attacked recently which indicates that some miners think it’s open season and have been on the trail for these chains. Lastly, there’s also been a lot of mining pools hiding their identities recently and a renewal of “unknown miners” has been seen on both the BCH and BTC networks.
What do you think about mining operations like Shark Get together and Orca Pool? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Image creditations: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Twitter, Shark Pool, and Orca Pool logos.
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